35-ft sinkhole opens up in flooded UK as storms leave 3 dead (VIDEO)

Large waves hit the lighthouse and harbour at high tide at Newhaven in Sussex, southern England February 15, 2014. (Reuters / Toby Melville) / Reuters

A 35-foot-wide sinkhole has opened up in the storm-battered UK as three people have died in a wave of floods spreading havoc across the southern England. A total of 17 flood warnings, denoting a “danger to life,” are in place.

One woman died after part of a building crushed a car driving
past Holborn tube station in central London. The concrete front
of the structure collapsed onto her car late Friday night. A
further two people in their mid-20s – who were also in the car –
were injured and hospitalized as a result of the incident, which
is being investigated by police.

“Sadly, despite extensive efforts to resuscitate her, a woman
was pronounced dead at the scene,” a London Ambulance
Service spokesperson said Saturday.

Ten more people were evacuated from buildings in the area as a
precautionary measure.

A passenger on a cruise ship in the English Channel also died
after a massive wave struck the British vessel Marco Polo as it
headed toward Tilbury in Essex late Friday, smashing through a
window, and injuring several passengers. The 85-year-old man was
airlifted to hospital, but didn’t survive.

Seventy-seven-year-old Bob Thomas of Caernarfon, North Wales,
died after being hit by a falling tree in his garden last
Wednesday.

“My thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends
of the people killed in the storms last night,” Labour Party
chief Ed Miliband, the opposition leader, tweeted.

Strong waves posed a danger to the public in a seaside restaurant
in Milford-on-Sea in Hampshire. Thirty-two people were evacuated
when a tidal surge flooded the ground floor and windows were
smashed by airborne shingle.

Over 140,000 homes nationwide are without power and severe
weather warnings remain in place across the country, which has
seen its wettest January in two and a half centuries. Gales of
around 80 miles (129 km) per hour have swept through the country,
according to the country’s Met Office.

Seventeen families were forced to evacuate their homes after a
sinkhole measuring some 35 feet wide appeared in Hertfordshire on
Saturday – the largest of three such sinkholes in the space of a
week.

“Police are currently in attendance in Oatridge Gardens,
Hemel Hempstead after receiving a report of a sinkhole appearing
in the road at 7:30am,” Hertfordshire police said in a
statement. They confirmed that the depth of the hole had reached
20 feet.

“The road, and surrounding roads, have been closed for the
safety of residents,” police said.

The M2 – a motorway in the southeastern county of Kent – also
developed a sinkhole 15 feet deep earlier in the week, while a
garden, also in Kent, saw another crater – 10 feet deep – opening
up.

Low-lying areas in the southwest – specifically Somerset – have
been submerged in floodwater since December. Train lines have
been subject to delays and cancellations – some because of
landslides – while a sea wall in the southwest collapsed as
storms battered the coast last week, forcing the closure of the
specific part of track that lay behind it.

The UK has not yet applied for financial help from the EU to cope
with the crisis. Prime Minister David Cameron declared Tuesday
that money would not be an issue when it came to dealing with the
floods. He has denied that there is a political motivation – in
an increadingly anti-EU atmosphere in right-wing UK politics –
behind the absence of a call for aid, despite the country having
had its 10 weeks from the “first damage caused” by a
natural disaster.

“We are ready to consider the possibility of providing the UK
with help – both in their struggle against the elements, and to
contribute to the elimination of its effects – but for this we
need to receive an official request from the British government,
which we do not have,” the news service of the European
Commission stated on Saturday, according to Itar-Tass.

"As Labour and the Lib Dems have killed the Wharton Bill, the one
way to guarantee a referendum is to vote Conservative at the Gen
Election."

MEPs addressed a letter to the Secretary of State for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Patterson, on January
8, reminding him that: “The fund has been given a budget of
414 million pounds in 2014 ($693 million), but your department
must apply within 10 weeks of the date on which the natural
disaster struck in order to be eligible. Several weeks have
already gone by…We also urge you to ensure that the full grant is
used for repairing the damage from the floods in accordance with
EU rules and does not get diverted or returned by HM Treasury, as
was allegedly the case with 79 million pounds ($132 million) of
the 110 million pounds ($184 million) granted to the UK by the
fund in 2007.”

On Friday, Welsh Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans reiterated her call
to the UK government to apply to the EU Solidarity Fund which was
set up with the intention of providing aid in such times of
crisis, despite the deadline having technically passed.

“The EU Solidarity Fund was set up as an emergency fund to be
used by countries hit by natural disasters to help them recover.
Welsh citizens, like all EU citizens, pay into the Solidarity
Fund…the UK government should have applied immediately,”
Evans wrote in a statement.